ABSTRACT

That plants native to one region of the world often fare poorly when transferred to another region has long been known. It seems odd, therefore, that the Green Revolution (GR) programmes of the 1950s and into the ‘60s sought to transfer temperate zone technology to the tropics. Proponents of the GR, however, justified this mistake by arguing that they had had little choice. For knowledge of tropical agriculture was at that time largely confined to export crops while GR programmes focused upon food staples. An understanding of how to transfer technology to the tropics, they maintained, was only achieved in the 1960s at the new international agricultural research centres.

Both of these claims, however, are highly misleading. By the 1950s the field of tropical agriculture had much to say about staples which would have been relevant to early GR programmes. Moreover, it was not until the late ‘60s that the new IARCs began to address fully the problem of transfer, and by the early ‘70s these efforts had lost momentum. It would appear, therefore, that those planning the early GR programmes were either unaware of existing knowledge about tropical agriculture or knew but chose to ignore it.

摘要

人们早就知道，原产于世界一个地区的植物在转移到另一个地区时往往表现不佳。因此，1950 年代和 60 年代的绿色革命 (GR) 计划试图将温带技术转移到热带地区，这似乎很奇怪。然而，遗传资源的支持者通过辩称他们别无选择来为这个错误辩护。因为当时热带农业的知识主要限于出口作物，而遗传资源计划侧重于主食。他们坚持认为，只有在 1960 年代新的国际农业研究中心才了解如何将技术转移到热带地区。

然而，这两种说法都极具误导性。到 1950 年代，热带农业领域对与早期遗传资源计划相关的主食有很多看法。此外，直到 60 年代末，新的 IARC 才开始全面解决转移问题，到 70 年代初，这些努力已经失去动力。因此，似乎那些计划早期遗传资源计划的人要么不知道有关热带农业的现有知识，要么知道但选择忽略它。